Signs Of A Cheating Spouse

Your spouse is cheating on you, or at least that’s what the voice in the back of your head is saying. Are you being paranoid, or have you just really been observing some typical signs of a cheating spouse? When you have been together with your spouse or life partner for a significant amount of time, you start picking up on their subtle “tell tale” signs of lying, or “stress reactions”. It’s easy to tell when your spouse is trying to deceive you. But what if you’re spouse is such a terrific liar they show no signs of cheating at all? Maybe you are just too trusting and would never expect them to lie to you, or even worse, cheat on you. It happens all the time. I’m sure you have stories of your own that you’ve heard from friends, family members, co-workers about people they know who seemed like they were so perfect for each other, but then had infidelity problems. You never thought that could happen to you? Here’s some advice on cheating signs based on our experiences(my own, my spouse, my friends, and other reader contributions). If you would like to contribute your own to this list, feel free to do so in the comments. It’s anonymous, we don’t require any personal information from you.

Advertisement

Cheating Signs

In no particular order, these are some common Signs of Cheating :

I want to look more attractive

Since when has your spouse had a sudden urge to go to the gym? Does your husband go to the gym? Does your wife want to stay slim? What reason would they have other than trying to attract, or wanting to impress the opposite sex. If you’ve been together for several years, and now is the only time your spouse has ever done this, and gave you no reason at all except for “I felt like it”, this should look suspicious to you. Some cheating spouses may use this new found “gym” time to be an excuse to be out of the house for several hours without worrying you, or looking suspicious. For women, this could mean an increase in buying new clothing, more revealing than the usual clothes they wear. For men, it could be as simple as grooming their facial hair, getting a new haircut. Things to watch out for are sudden changes that they can’t explain, not a major red flag but still useful to keep track of.

The 5 hour shopping trip

This is common among women. You know how your wife shops for hours and hours, and you stay home, then she comes back with tons of shopping bags or groceries? When this happens and she comes back with little to no shopping bags or groceries, can’t show you a receipt, something is wrong. Applies to both husband wife, the 5 hour shopping trip is a very weak excuse to give your spouse, and is an obvious sign of deception. You can easily tell if they are lying when they can’t explain why it took 5 hours. Trusting spouses will usually believe “window shopping” or “I ran into a friend”. If this happens too often, you better do some investigating. Obvious signs that they are lying is they are “dressed to impress” and heading out for a simple “trip to the grocery”.

First stop, shower

Another common cheating sign. When a spouse gets home, don’t they usually look for their spouse and give them attention? Most of the time when my hubby gets home, he heads straight for me, then the kitchen, then back to me and we chat a little before we eat dinner. If you and your spouse have similar rituals as me and my spouse do, it will certainly seem out of place when your spouse just yells “I’m home!” and heads straight for the bathroom. Cheating spouses do this in order to fully inspect themselves for any traces of infidelity on their clothing, and themselves. Washing the guilt away is just as easy as taking a shower for some cold blooded liars.

Tolerates flirts or acts flirty

Having been together with your spouse for some time now, you know exactly how they act towards people who flirt with them, or try to hit on them. If your wife used to ignore people that try to flirt with her, or even scold them, but now you notice her laugh and “play along”, then you should be suspicious. Same goes for husbands who initiate the flirting. Both tolerating flirts, and initiating flirts are not acceptable behaviors in a regular marriage. If you are married, the only person you flirt with your spouse. Some people may have an open relationship, where both parties agree to open flirting, but if this happens to you and you don’t have an agreement that you can flirt with other people of the opposite sex, your mate may be looking for another.

“Do we have toooo?”

If you have a kid, you most likely have heard this line several times already. This is the general attitude of someone who does not want to be part of what is happening right now, and wants to do something else. If your spouse shows the same reluctance when you want to do something together, you may have competition for your spouse’s attention. You notice when your spouse gets home from whatever it is you wanted to do, they either never let it down how much they hated it or were bored, or they immediately head to the computer. Which leads me to the next sign..

Technologically hooked

Cheaters often use cellphones, computers, and laptops to communicate with each other. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage to them. It’s so easy to monitor these devices using cellphone spies, keyloggers, or even GPS trackers. But you don’t need those if you notice your spouse immediately comes home, and heads straight for the computer. Hides the screen from you. Always has a cellphone in their hand. Try and asking who they are communicating with, and they’ll usually say it’s no one, it’s just a friend, or some other diversion tactics they may have up their sleeves. If you don’t know who they are talking to, you should find out. Find out as soon as you can, waiting for problems to fix themselves is never good. I learned this from my mother, who was also cheated on by my father when they were in their mid 40-s. The affair lasted close to a year and she had NO idea until she observed some of the signs I am now describing here. This next one is one of the biggest signs that helped her. But a GPS Tracker on his cellphone is what gave her 100% undeniable proof of cheating. My mother is brave and she actually tailed the GPS tracker with her car.

Inappropriate jokes about cheating

This is what my father started doing when he was having an affair. Maybe in his arrogant mind, he thought he was sort of “confessing”, or maybe he was just trying to lighten the guilt of cheating on his wife of 20 years. He used to make vague excuses, and as he was about to leave my mother would ask “where are you headed off to?” “to my other woman”, he’d say, and other times similar, dirtier versions of that. At first my mom just laughed it off, because this was how their relationship was, a lot of kidding around and fooling each other. She most likely put it all together when his drinking buddies never mentioned their poker games anymore, and his paycheck never increased with all the out of town business trips. He still continued with the inappropriate jokes about cheating on her though until they fought about it and she said it wasn’t funny anymore.

In bed: Complete shut out, or the exact opposite

This would depend on your current, or lack thereof, sexual relationship. Sometimes a cheater will want nothing to do with you in bed, saving themselves for their new found mate. Other times it could be the complete polar opposite of that, and the cheater becomes experimentative. Trying new things they could have learned from their new partner. I personally never experienced the latter, it was just mostly cold silence in the bedroom aside from the TV. Other people often experience the latter, which is why they are more surprised to find out their spouse has been cheating because they think having regular relations in the bedroom means their partners needs are fully sated.

Did you use to share everything? Not anymore

You used to know your spouse’s email passwords, bank account PINs, facebook account passwords etc, but they suddenly changed it without telling you why or giving you a reason. This sudden need for privacy should alarm you. Maybe if you are not in a serious relationship yet, it’s fine, but if you are married, it’s suspicious. Couples who have been together long enough know and share everything about themselves. Hiding email or conversations on the internet is a big red flag if they can’t give you a reasonable explanation for their sudden need of privacy.

The classic contraception situation

You had a surgery (vasectomy, tubal ligation) to stop you from having any accidental pregnancies, but you found some condoms, morning after pills, or other form of contraception in your car or in an article of clothing from your spouse. This obviously is going to shock you because your spouse most likely knows about your surgery, and knows you don’t need any form of birth control anymore. Obviously a cheater would lie by saying the usual lines like “it’s not mine, its my friend’s!” “Jesus you are so paranoid, *name* must have accidentally left it here” or some other cliche excuse. So before asking your spouse whose is it, try and bait them first and find out if they’ve had any other people ride with them, then show the contraception.

I’m not a lover, I’m a fighter!

Fighting become a common thing in your relationship? Do you and your husband or wife fight over inane things, and end up in a yelling competition over who left the toilet seat up? Stupid little things turning into a full blown fight may just be another excuse they are looking for to leave the house! Especially if it’s always them starting the fights. If this inane fighting is becoming a weekly occurrence, resulting in your spouse having a reason to “cool off” away from you, and your home, next time you fight try doing the opposite. DON’T fight back and just agree, that should cut their excuse to leave. If they keep prodding and trying to find a reason to “cool off”, you know something’s wrong.

“Nah, it’ll bore you to death where I work”

In other words, “Nah, I don’t want you to see me and how I interact with a certain someone from work”. Wouldn’t you want your spouse picking you up from work, or paying you a visit when you have free time? Like lunch for example. If you suspect your spouse cheating with a workmate, try asking them out on a lunch date and say you’ll be around the area. Of course you’ll have to be around the area to make it look like you’re not trying to spy on them. Typical reaction would of a cheater would be to fire off another cliche “I’m too busy honey, I can’t” “I’ll be doing something at lunch” “I already have a lunch meeting” “We can do it some other time”.

Working for free

Not really working for free, but that’s what it seems like when your spouse says they have overtime, extra work, a new project but never show a cent earned from their extracurricular activities. Unless, obviously, if your spouse volunteers for charities. If your spouse volunteers for charities, and never really talks about it in detail when you ask, you have almost no chance of really finding out the truth unless you yourself join the charity. If you offer to help, and your spouse reacts negatively, then that is a sign of deception, and should raise red flags. Get yourself involved!

Guilt driven niceness

You for no reason getting random gifts from your spouse? Is he suddenly sweeter, or takes you out to dinner? Does she cook your favorite meal, or offer to give you a massage? Sometimes that’s what a cheater does to convince themselves that what they are doing is okay because “I love my spouse, the other person is just for fun” in their mind justifies their actions. Being nice to you is somehow equated to “loving” you, while cheating on you is equated to “just fun” for them, and not massive disrespect to you and your relationship.

“I can hear you breathing you psycho!”

Getting more and more callers that don’t answer when you pickup? A classic, seen in almost any movie that has some infidelity going on. If you get random phone calls that don’t answer when you pickup, but your spouse never does, it could mean it’s their cheat partner calling them. Think about this, when was the actual last time you have received a wrong number? Normally, I probably get at most two to three wrong numbers in a year! If it’s happening once a month, you might have someone after your spouse.

Phone bill fluctuations

Getting long distance charges? Repeated midnight phone calls, which they deny or say “I can’t remember who, I don’t think I called anyone” or something similar is an obvious sign of cheating. You better confront them after this, since you already have solid undeniable proof that they are lying. A good cheater will not use the house phone, or even the cellphone. They will use skype or something similar to keep in contact with their cheat partner. Cellphones nowadays are common and cheap, so don’t be surprised if you find some hidden cellphones that are being used behind your back.

Monthly spending trends, skyrocketing

Being in a relationship, you both share financial details with each other so it’s easy to spot this. If you suspect your spouse of cheating, keep track of their monthly spendings and I can almost guarantee that a cheater will always have their spendings go higher and higher. This was true for my mom, and it was true for myself. My father spent an awful lot more money on gas and other things that were left unexplained. Since my mom loved(still does actually) him so much, she just trusted him. My ex-husband did not spend an awful lot more on gas, but he did spend on hotel rooms which I found out by look at the credit card bills. Even if he lied about it, I had verifiable evidence in form of the bills, and his exact GPS location. Even without the GPS device, it would have been obvious that he was cheating because of the bills alone. He sealed his own grave because I baited him and he said he was at a friend’s house and was too drunk to drive home. He has no friends who own hotels.

Missing wedding ring

Seems like this is a no brainer, right? Removing the wedding ring when pursuing other men/women is the typical thing a cheating spouse would do. But there are some people who keep the wedding ring on, and for some reason this heightens the thrill of their affair. Also some women have a silly belief that when a man is married already, they are somehow better in bed. This is a stupid belief, it’s as simple as this: you are GREEDY. You want something you can’t have and don’t care who you have to step on to get what you want.

I’m going to the gym, time to pack my mini skirt

When your spouse, husband or wife, packs clothing, try to check on or offer to help them pack. Sometimes you’ll see them packing things that really do not fit in to where they are supposedly going. Mini skirt being packed when going to the gym? Semi formal clothes being packed in the trunk of your car for a supposed “fishing trip” with the guys? Doesn’t add up. If you find sexy lingerie packed in your wife’s business trip baggage, you better confront her!

The car does not lie

There are so many ways to make the car “speak”. You can check the seat position (both passenger and driver seat), has it been moved from where it normally should be? Yes? Possible cheating, but unlikely cause most passengers move those seats anyway. Millage of your car, this is vital. If you already have that feeling that your spouse is cheating, along with monitoring their monthly spendings, start monitoring the millage they use every day, week, or month. Another verifiable evidence coupled with spending on gas money. There are also certain tests (semen test kits) that you can purchase online that you could possibly use on your car’s seats.

Like animals, we are programmed to have routines

Any sudden change in routine with no real story to back up why they changed their routine could mean they are trying to hide something. A cheating spouse changes routines suddenly, a loving spouse will change routines WITH you and give you a reason for it. Like exercising for example, a cheating spouse would just one day tell you “I’m off to the gym” with no prior notice besides that day they they were planning to go to the gym. A normal, loyal spouse will try to convince you to join them, so both of you can start getting fitter and live healthier lives together. Another example would be shopping, cheating spouse: “I’m going shopping, be back soon”, loyal spouse: “Lets go shopping, I want to show you something I like”.

Because my gut says so

One of the best signs your spouse could be cheating on you, is your own intuition telling you it could be a possibility. Who knows your spouse better than you yourself, right? All the tools and signs of cheating we discuss in this site to catch a cheating spouse is only used for confirming your beliefs, helping you spot more lies, and collecting evidence. The initial feeling you got that your spouse could be cheating is what drove you here, looking for confirmation based on other people’s experience. That is the biggest red flag of all, if YOU think your spouse is cheating, you probably might be dead on.

Before You Confront a Cheater

Observe The Suspected Cheater

Cheating spouses signs should NOT be the basis for you to confront your husband or wife regarding an affair. This is just anti cheating advice and should serve as a guideline to help you detect an affair, not as your “proof”. We always recommend that you back up your accusations before you even think of confronting a cheater. A good cheater, is a good liar; don’t underestimate the things a liar will say to get out of the hot seat. Get enough irrefutable evidence of your cheating spouse, think of any excuses they may come up with and answer them with the evidence you collected.

Advertisement

Gather Evidence Of Infidelity

Such evidence could include transcripts you caught on your home computer via keylogger, the location of their car via GPS tracking, or other ways described in the how to catch a cheating spousearticle. Your goal should be to make them admit to cheating. There’s no way that anyone can argue their way out of data gathered from a GPS tracker, or a mobile phone tracker, and most probably if you do not have any evidence they will just accuse you of being paranoid and blame you for everything. If you do have evidence of an affair and they still won’t admit it, take that as a sign that the relationship may not be salvageable; don’t be delusional and think the problem will fix itself, it won’t. That may sound cruel to you, but that is how you should react. Aim for things that you can achieve, not things that you want to happen. If your spouse wants to lie and continue to cheat, there is nothing you can do about it, it’s out of your control. What you can do is stop wasting your time on the liar and start finding ways to improve the quality of your life.

If you want to add a sign of a cheating spouse that isn’t mentioned here, feel free to leave a comment. We don’t track you, or ask for any personal information, you can be as anonymous as you want to be.

Similar Articles:

Signs Of An Emotional Affair Is your spouse having an emotional affair? You can read more about emotional affairs in that article, this article will focus on the warning signs that you might observe from a husband or wife having who is emotionally cheating. Most people, the cheaters especially, do not consider emotional affairs as...

How To Catch A Cheating Spouse Do you already know that your spouse is cheating on you? Just need to be a hundred percent sure before you take action on your relationship? In this article we will list down ways on how you can catch your spouse cheating. Before you read this, you may want to...

Free Ways to Catch Your Spouse Cheating In this article we will talk about the free ways we can catch a cheating spouse. Although not as effective as their paid counterparts (using keyloggers, cell phone trackers, or hidden cameras), it is still effective. The only problems we have with these methods are the limitations they have regarding...

Catch Cheating Spouse With Keyloggers In this article we will discuss the functions and types of keyloggers, and how you can use them to confirm or deny your beliefs that your spouse is cheating on you. We will also include information on how to detect a keylogger on computer just to keep you informed on...

Emotional Affairs What are emotional affairs? Emotional affairs are relationships formed by individuals who are already in a monogamous relationship (married or long term relationship), but start or maintain another relationship that involves emotional intimacy with a different partner. These new relationships could start out merely as plain friendship, but slowly end...

Surviving Infidelity The following are scenarios that you may find yourself in when trying to survive infidelity, along with my opinions on what you can do. Know that I am just like you, I am not a PHD, not a self proclaimed relationship guru, and not a marriage counselor; I am none...

About Kris

Kris writes about various topics related to Infidelity. She has received a lot of positive feedback from her own personal blog and is dedicated to help others deal with their infidelity problems. You can contact her at catchacheateradmin@gmail.com or send her a personal message at the Surviving Infidelity Forums. View all posts by Kris »